Snapchat gets new augmented reality and camera tools

Snap, creators of Snapchat, have announced new augmented reality tools and camera experiences for Snapchatters, creators, and businesses. Snap says it is building a camera that transforms how its community interacts with the world around them through access to contextual information and richer augmented reality experiences.

More than 5 billion Snaps are created every day on average, making the Snapchat camera one of the most used in the world. Snapchat opens to the camera, so it’s at the center of how the global Snapchat community communicates.

Scan and Camera Shortcuts

Scan enables Snapchatters to search through millions of Lenses by matching what is seen through the camera to the most relevant AR experiences on Snapchat. More than 170 million Snapchatters use Scan on the world around them every month, surfacing informative Lenses from creators and partners. This feature is now added to the main Camera screen of Snapchat.

Snap is introducing new categories of intelligence to scan with its partners. Screenshop gives shopping recommendations from hundreds of brands when Snapchatters scan a friend’s outfit, and they can also select photos from Memories to Scan with Screenshop. Soon, Allrecipes will recommend recipes based on ingredients seen through the Snapchat camera.

Snap is introducing camera shortcuts, which are new combinations of creative tools that make it possible for Snapchatters to creatively capture moments with more functionality. Camera Shortcuts suggest camera modes, Lenses, and soundtracks relevant to what is seen through the Snapchat camera, and have begun rolling out.

Lens Studio

Lens Studio is a free desktop application that lets any creator, developer, or business combine a range of technical and creative capabilities to build, publish, and promote lenses. The Lens Studio community has grown to over 200,000 creators, and they’ve made nearly 2 million lenses.

It has been with advanced tools that empower creators to build more robust, innovative lenses across gaming, education, and shopping — and refine them over time. Lens Studio now features Connected Lenses, which lets friends interact together in real time, whether located in the same room or across the world. Snap and the Lego Group have created the first Connected Lens, so starting today, friends can collaboratively build with Lego bricks on Snapchat.

In addition, Lens Studio now offers 3D Body Mesh, Cloth Simulation, and a Visual Effects Editor, which make AR look and move more realistically than before. SnapML enables creators to import their own custom machine learning models that analyse and generate audio, so lenses can respond to sound. Visual classification brings the power of Scan to Lens Studio, allowing creators to build lenses that understand more than 500 categories of objects. As lenses become more advanced, new lens analytics give creators the information they need to build even more engaging and retentive experiences. Anonymous and aggregated data offer detailed insights to help creators learn from their audiences and build better lenses, while protecting privacy.

Visit lensstudio.snapchat.com to download and create with Lens Studio.

AR Try-On and Business Solutions

Snap is introducing new AR try-on experiences with fashion partners, bringing Snapchatters together with businesses through the Snapchat camera. FarFetch provides an immersive shopping experience using 3D Body Mesh and voice-enabled controls, letting Snapchatters say what items they’re looking to browse and try on in AR. Prada is tapping into new gesture recognition capabilities that let shoppers signal to the camera when they want to try on another item.

Through Snap’s partnership with Perfect Corp, The Estée Lauder Companies will be among the first to leverage Snap’s AR Shopping platform tools. By integrating their product catalog through Snap’s API in Business Manager, brands like M·A·C Cosmetics can build Lenses from new AR Shopping templates and publish them to Snapchat, based on real-time product inventory.

In addition to API-enabled shopping Lenses, Snap is also working with select partners to bring real-time content into Lenses, allowing snaps to better capture the moment. Starting today, Major League Baseball brings stats from live games into Lenses.

Businesses and creators can get started at ar.snap.com.